Tuesday, December 13, 2016

I went to the square in town last night get some new shots of the lights and decorations. Those that strung the lights went even higher in the trees than previous years and I thought I better get some good shots since it's the best display so far in the 20 years we've lived here. Also, just before I started shooting, I took a little stop into Roots Bistro and ran into Rudy Ximenez of RSX Studios, Georgetown's best photographer! Great guy who I hope to go shooting with sometime! Glad to finally meet him!

Anyway, below is the first of a few shots and I think I may have to go back there later in the week to get a few more.

I edited this one a little different than normal. I did an in-camera edit to change the white balance as well as the crop and then I downloaded to my ipad and brightened the courthouse with Snapseed. Lastly, I just imported into Lightroom and exported it with my watermark, If there was a good way to watermark in an iPad or iPhone, that would be awesome! I know watermark lite app exists, but I wish Lightroom mobile did it!

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

It seems everyone needs a happy place or zone or something these days. The hyperbole (I know it's pronounced high-pur-bowl-ee, but I like to say hyper bowl, like it's a football game) about the recent election is just very over the top. The choice we had to begin with wasn't very good anyway. And, now that it's over, one side thinks evil incarnate has arrived and all puppies, kittens and hamsters will be declared not cute anymore and therefore exterminated, and the other side thinks the savior has arrived and not only will puppies, kittens and hamsters stay cute, but everyone will love them and they will not poop all over your new carpeting in all of your bedrooms that you can remodel now that you can keep more of your tax dollars. All I can say, to quote Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is, "R-E-L-A-X, relax." We also need to "pump the brakes" a bit as they say. Things won't be that bad, but yet I have a feeling things won't be THAT great, either. We survived the last 8 years, the 8 years before that, the 8 years before that and so on. Not saying this most recent event will last 8 years, but you know what I mean. So for the last 8 years, some people needed a safe/happy zone/place and now for at least 4 years, others will need it.

So, to acknowledge those who recently left their happy places and those just entering theirs, I would like to post a shot of one of my happy places... Hawaii!! This is from the Napali Coast of Kauai and the formation seen here is known as the Cathedrals. I took this while on a helicopter tour of the island that Eileen and I took with Jack Harter Helicopter Tours. We flew in a helicopter like the one in the old TV show Magnum P.I. It has no doors and I think part of me hung just a tad outside of the copter the whole tour. So much so that when we flew through a little rain, my arm got wet. However, it would dry off very quickly as we flew out of it. We highly recommend it if you decide to do that on Kauai!

Friday, November 11, 2016

Today is a day for thanking our veterans for their service. If you see a vet, thank him/her! Also, please take a moment to reflect on the sacrifices of those past, present and future have done and will do to make our lives possible if not better.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Now that the long national pastime known as the Presidential Election is finally over, it's time to unite and get back to pictures. What better way to move forward that to post a panorama of another NFL stadium! Makes sense? Yeah not really, but who cares!

So this is a pano of the Georgia Dome, current home of the Atlanta Falcons for one more year. I think they will have a new stadium to call home right next door next year, but for now this is it.

I took this shot prior to the Seahawks v Falcons game on Nov 10th, 2013 and the Seahawks pounded them 33-10. The Seahawks went on to win the Superbowl by defeating the Broncos 43-8.

One last thought, I'm thinking I may get a fisheye lens for these types of shots in the future. I really liked how it worked out for a stadium shot of Jerry's World a few years back as well as Sports Authority Field in Denver because I can capture more of the stadiums. There would be less detail in the final shot, but I'm really thinking it would be easier and better. Anyone out there have experience with a fisheye on a Fujifilm X-T1 or X-T2?

Friday, November 4, 2016

This is a crazy new building going up in Chicago and it's another that is only known by its address: 150 N Riverside. It's futuristic with all of the glass windows and its "inverted" structure for lack of a better term.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

What a game! The Chicago Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years after being down 3 games to 1! It was a hell of a game but I gotta admit, I didn't watch the whole thing. I wish I would have now, but when it went into extra innings - plus a rain delay - it became too excruciating plus I had to work in the morning. If I stayed up however, the Cubs would have lost, so they can thank me. I think I deserve a world series ring for that move! :-)

To mark the occasion, this image here is of the scoreboard at Wrigley before the game we saw versus the Cards. It shows David Ross and his kid during the pre-game ceremony marking Ross' retirement from baseball at the end of the season.

I thought it was fitting as it says "Congratulations" because 'grats go all around.. To general manager Theo Epstein who helped break curses now at both Boston and Chicago, all the players on the Cubs team, especially David Ross who even hit a home run in game seven of the series and last but not least to the fans, including my father-in-law, Paul who's been a Cubs fan his whole life! Paul never thought he'd see the day! Congratulations! Go Cubs Go!!!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

This is the Green Door Tavern and was the last stop on our Sunday pub crawl. It was an interesting neighborhood bar. It interested me because of the doorway leading into the bar. You can see there's two doors, an exterior door and then another to get into the bar as you can see on the left. However, the wall and the door jam for the interior door are tilted like they are about to fall over. Hopefully it won't and obviously it didn't while we were there!

Friday, October 21, 2016

After the architectural tour and our pit stop at Harry Caray's to watch football and consume adult beverages, Eileen and I took a walk to the end of the Navy Pier to see if we could get some photos of the sailboats moving around on Lake Michigan. The idea was to get a nice shot that we could put in the water closet of our newly remodeled master bath. This is the one that turned out the best and we're gonna try getting a print of it on either metal or glass. Hopefully it will work!

Thursday, October 20, 2016

This is the second picture from the same sequence of shots during one pitch. I put the first one out there just on Facebook and Instagram, but after further review, Arrieta was a bit blurry due to a slow shutter speed. Me being a bonehead forgot to switch to shutter priority and bang the speed up to 1/750 or 1/1000 which works better for sports. However, in this shot he's not moving real fast as he is at the top of the pitch. Gotta remember that shutter-priority versus aperture-priority bit when it comes to sports!

Monday, October 17, 2016

We did do more in Chicago besides seeing a Cubs game and looking at buildings; we also went to a Bears football game! It was fun, but the Bears got trounced 29-14, if I remember correctly. Plus, our seats kinda sucked... The seats were good as far as seeing the field from the end-zone, but they sucked because they were right outside the tunnel where people would go to get refreshments or take bathroom breaks. We sat just above the steps for it so whenever anyone came and went, they would block our view as they went up and down the steps. And when people are drinking beer, guess how often they go up and down the stairs?

Prior to the game, I took this pano as the sun was setting. It turned out pretty nicely, I think. As I put this pano together, I learned that Photoshop does a better job at panoramas than Lightroom does. When I merged the photos for this shot in Lightroom, no matter what combination of photos I tried, the word "CHICAGO" in the near end-zone always seems to be missing a letter. Plus, the the near sides of the upper decks of the stadium were misaligned as well. Using the same images in Photoshop on the other hand, for the most part, everything turned out great!

Friday, October 14, 2016

Across N. Sheffield Ave at the backside of Wrigley, there are several apartment buildings. Back in the 1980's (I think) when Harry Caray used to broadcast the games, he would likely point out the rooftops of those apartments as there would usually be a couple of guys sitting up there in lawn-chairs with a cooler of beer watching the games. Over the years it has evolved from lawn chairs on regular flat roofs into stadium seating. You know what happens when there's money to be made, right?! Anyway, the lower half of the picture are the actual bleachers (and the "bleacher bums") in right field of Wrigley, whereas above the WrigleyRooftops.com signs are the seats and bleachers that are on the different apartment buildings across the street.

I selected the black and white conversion because of the timelessness of black and white. The shot originally used the classic chrome film simulation from the camera which I therefore converted to black and white in Nik Silver Efex 2.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

The Cubs made it to the National League Championship Series! YES!!! Let's hope they beat the snot out of either the Dodgers or the Nats. We'll find out who the Cubs will play tonight! When the Cubs do play whoever, gotta pray they do a lot of what Dexter Fowler is doing in this picture.

This was shot in the bottom of the first inning against the St Louis Cardinals on Sept. 23d, 2016. Dexter Fowler scores on a wild pitch as Anthony Rizzo (bat in hand) watches with Cardinals pitcher Mike Leake in between trying to cover home plate. Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina chases the ball and Matt Adams tries to cover as well coming in from first base. Cubs ultimately won 5-0!

Shot is a jpg straight from camera using classic chrome film simulation, cropped to get rid of distractions and a little added vignette in LR.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Our place in Andersonville was a little ways away from downtown Chicago, but we could still see parts of the city when we peered through our neighbor's deck. You can see the Willis Tower (aka Sears Tower) off in the distance.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

It only makes sense to post a picture from the Cubs game we went to since the Cubs are now in the playoffs. This shot here shows last year's National League Rookie of the Year and 2015 All Star, Kris Bryant batting against the St Louis Cardinals. The kid is awesome and is a big reason the Cubs have the best record in baseball. Let's hope they can break the curse this year and win the series!

We love going to these old ball parks. There's an intimacy, history and character to them that you just can't get at the newer ballparks, even if the new ones are so fan-friendly. Baseball is a sport that just seems to be better played and watched in these old stadiums. You can sort of feel the ghosts of baseball-past while sitting in the seats wondering what it must've been like 100 years ago. Drinking a beer and eating a hot dog and shelled peanuts is a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. Ferris Bueller knew what he was doing when he skipped school.

As far as the technical side of this shot goes, this is straight from the Fuji using the classic chrome setting with only a little spot healing from the Photoshop Fix app on the iPad. Otherwise, this is straight from the camera!

Friday, October 7, 2016

We took an impromptu architectural tour from the Navy Pier before our pub crawl on our first full day in Chicago. Oh and thanks again, Valerie, for paying for my ticket! The tour was via riverboat through downtown. Two of the cool buildings we saw were the Willis Tower on the left (to me it will always be the Sears Tower) and 311 South Wacker Dr., the building on the right. Yes, that building is only known by its address. For you Texans out there, the 311 S Wacker building is made from pink granite from Texas. Also, that building is not as tall as the Sears/Willis Tower, but because of the angle of this shot, it looks that way.. You can read more about it here.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

I'm finally getting around to editing some of the shots I took during our trip to Chicago a couple of weeks ago. The first of those is this skyline shot here taken from the Signature Lounge atop the Hancock Building on the 96th floor! Awesome views from up there! The only weird thing though was that on the other side of the windows were tons of spiders and spider webs - 96 floors up! That's a whole lot of climbing for those guys.. To try to combat that, I opened up the aperture all the way to blur out everything close to the lens. But, the sky has some blotches in it that I can seem to make heads or tails of.. Sorry about that. Otherwise, I like the shot and I hope you do, too!

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Eileen and I went to the Poppy Festival this past April and I took my camera along to see if I could get some good street shots, needing the practice and getting out of my comfort zone. Well needless to say, I only came back with one photo that I thought was somewhat interesting and that's this shot of these lovely ladies enjoying themselves and taking pictures. It's fun to try and take street pictures, but it's always a challenge to do it without coming across as "the creepy guy with the camera taking pictures of people he doesn't know." I think there's an obvious art to it and Jeff Vaillancourt and Rich McPeek are really good at it... I'll try again some day.

Tuesday, September 6, 2016

My favorite time of the year is almost upon us and that time is Football Season! Part of it has already started, the college football part. This past labor Day weekend was touted as the greatest opening weekend in CFB history because there were so many games between top-25 ranked teams and it didn't disappoint! No 3 Oklahoma lost, No 5 LSU lost and so did No 10 Notre Dame! It was awesome! Plus my faves - the Michigan Wolverines - smacked Hawai'i 63-3. Kinda awesome wouldn't you say?

The other part of football season is opening weekend for the NFL which starts this Thursday night. Denver will play Carolina in a Super Bowl rematch. That should be a great game as well! Now that football is in full-swing, it means cooler weather is coming and we here in Texas can breathe a sigh of relief for getting through another hot summer.

To commemorate the beginning of football season, I thought this shot of a 60 yard field goal try by the San Diego Chargers from the game we went to last year would be a good one... I don't believe he made it by the way...

I used my Panasonic DMC-FZ300 because it has a full-frame comparable 600mm lens at the long end. However, the sensor is pretty small so the shot is a bit grainy, but this shot is at mid-field and we were in the nosebleeds in the end zone, so I might take the trade-off.

Friday, September 2, 2016

I've really been negligent in the maintenance of this blog... Therefore, I figure it's waayy past time to post a shot. That being said, here is another shot from Las Vegas, particularly from Las Vegas Blvd near the Bellagio and just across from Paris Las Vegas. This was a long exposure to try and capture some of the light trails from moving cars, not to mention other trails from drunks asking when the Bellagio fountains will start at 4 in the morning... OK, you can't see those trails, but trust me, they're there.

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

I had to go to Dallas for business a couple of weeks ago and I asked Cliff Baise where would be a good place to get a nice skyline shot. He recommended Trinity Overlook Park and this is the view from there.

I had quite an adventure trying to get there because Apple Maps took me to some weird part of town that looked like it was behind a warehouse or something. So, I basically drove around until it got dark, but I eventually found this place. I stopped in a parking garage by a county jail and that wasn't promising... Attendants at a gas station didn't know where this was... After driving around like a madman through neighborhoods and abandoned parking lots, I finally found it. Not sure why Apple Maps didn't have it correct, but at least I made it!

Friday, July 29, 2016

Eileen and I stayed at the Hilton Americas when we went to the Angels v. Astros game. On the 24th floor, there's this great observation deck located just outside the indoor pool that has a great view of downtown. So after the game, Eileen and I went up and scouted it out. The funny thing is that you have to walk through the pool area to get there, so I felt a little weird carrying my camera through it to get to the deck. The deck is outside and has plexiglass above the railing to prevent people from falling or whatever else. I wanted to get an unobstructed view so I popped the tripod very carefully up on one of the planters - without disturbing the plants of course - and took about 5 sets of brackets and then got out. I didn't want to block the view for others too long so I just spent a few minutes and went back to the room.

What you see here is the final product. By the way, I'm not sure why the one building has the windows lit up with "USA" other than they must be getting excited for the Olympics, which is two weeks from the date I took this shot.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Eileen and I went to go see the Angels play the Astros last Saturday. We don't have a dog in the hunt for either one of these two teams, but we went for a couple of reasons.. One is that the Astros play in a retractable roof dome and the other is because the Angels have two potential hall of famers on their team; Albert Pujols and Mike Trout. So, there you have it!

This is a shot of Mike Trout during his first time at bat. I don't think he got a hit and neither did Pujols. I think Pujols even struck out at least twice. He struck out looking on one of them and he yelled at the ump and almost got kicked out. Poor Albert. If he keeps playing like that he might not make it to the HOF.

As far as the shot goes, I was hoping to get more of Mike's face in the shot. But from the angle we were sitting at, his head was down and his visor covered his face. I do have some shots that show more of his face, but I found them less interesting than this one. I liked this one because it shows the motion of the bat during his swing as well as the ball. I might post a couple more, but I thought this at least told a little bit more of a story than the others.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

This is another shot I took during my little tour of Vegas in the wee hours of the morning. I got kicked out by security not too long after I took this shot, too.. Why? I don't know.. There was hardly anyone there. Oh well.

One thing about this picture is that when I was there, I didn't realize there was this sort of piece of art made up of many different colored canoes as you see on the right. I didn't notice this as I shot it, nor did I notice it when I processed the first shot of the Aria I posted. But when I processed this one, I brightened them up to see what the heck they were and lo and behold, canoes! This leads me to my next question; why in the heck do they have a load of canoes glued together in the middle of City Center in Las Vegas? I have a feeling the answer is similar to the question, why do people climb Mt Everest? Because they can...

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

When we flew back from Lake Tahoe, we had to connect through Las Vegas. After we took off from Las Vegas to head to Austin, we had this excellent view of the canyons below. I'm not sure if this is part of the Grand Canyon or some of the gorges and canyons that connect to it. I feel it is the latter. Anyway, it was quite a site to see!

Monday, July 4, 2016

Happy 4th of July, everyone! Here's wishing you and yours a great holiday! Enjoy the fireworks and as always, thanks to all our servicemen and women for their service! We wouldn't be free without you!

So this is a shot of the US flag flying over the harbor at the town of Avalon on Catalina Island off the coast of California. I took this shot while Eileen and I were taking a self-guided golf cart tour of the island. It was fun, but went pretty quickly.

I meant to post this shot yesterday to celebrate today's holiday, but by the time I realized it, I had already posted the shot of Lake Tahoe. Oh well, at least I got this one out before the end of the day! ;-)

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Sticking with the California theme, this shot is from the Heavenly Mountain Resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe. I took this shot on the last day of skiing there during our trip last Feb.

It's fun to take a camera skiing, especially the Fuji X-T1 with the 18-55mm kit lens because it's a pretty small package to get some nice pictures while skiing. However, it's not a iPhone or something compact like that so it can still be a bit cumbersome, but it's better than a DSLR. Luckily - I guess - is that it was pretty warm on this day, so I could keep the camera hanging around my neck with my jacket unzipped instead of in a backpack. It made it easier to scope out good spots and shoot right away instead having to stop and pull the camera out of a backpack each time. Obviously, this was one of those spots. Pretty nice, eh?

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Sun Deck Bar at the Hotel Del Coronado is a great place to enjoy a nice cocktail while the sun goes down over the ocean. Highly recommended if you ever get to San Diego. We stopped there for a nice meal on our first stop during our California trip last Oct to see the Steelers play the Chargers. Now that the Rams are back in California, I guess we'll have to go back to see another game. And, if the Chargers get a new stadium, we may have to see them again as well... Anyway, this is the bar outside the "Hotel Del" and it's a wonderful place. Check it out! And, if you get there at the right time, head to the water.. You never know if you might see some Navy SEALs training on the beach or in the ocean near there since the base is very close by...

Friday, June 24, 2016

I took this shot towards the end of my little photowalk on our last morning in Las Vegas... This is the Prada store at the Aria. I really liked the design and thought it would make a cool image including the sign.. There were some derelicts wandering about and that would have made quite an ironic shot with them included, but my deal was to just get out of there and get back to the room. I was pretty tired of avoiding them and really did not want to deal with anymore possible crazies. Although, there was a lady derelict on one of the bridges spanning Las Vegas Blvd who wished me a Happy Easter.. That was nice in a weird/sad sort of way...

Monday, June 20, 2016

Time to post another shot from our Vegas trip about 3 mos ago.. This is the view from the top of Hoover Dam looking at the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge. Just looking down, doesn't that make you think that you could just skateboard down to the bottom? It's only around 700 feet high, so one could get going rather fast!

This shot is comprised of a collage of about 8 or so shots encompassing everything, all taken in portrait orientation and stitched together in Lightroom. It's not a traditional pano, but very similar.

Sunday, June 5, 2016

This is another shot I took of Justin Verlander as he pitched during a Tigers v Astros game last year at Minute Maid Park in Houston. It's similar to the shot I posted last year. I think this must be from the same sequence of shots during the same pitch. Not sure which one I like better.. Anyway, Mr. Verlander's getting a little older now so not sure how much longer he'll be able to pitch well for the Tigers, but he's a workhorse for sure.

As far as processing goes, I cropped the original, used Fuji's Classic Chrome film simulation and added a little vignette. To see the differences, roll your mouse over the image and you'll see the original straight from the camera and when you roll off, you'll see the final image with the changes I made.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Going back into the archives for this shot... This was from our trip to Alaska a couple of years ago. We were coming back in to Whittier after a tour of the fiords and glaciers. However, I'm not totally sure if this was from the tour from hell when Eileen got sick after a half hour, or the the tour prior to that en-which it was calm the whole day. I think it was the latter by the look of the water here.

It's amazing how big the mountains are especially when you see such a huge cruise ship as this Princess boat dwarfed by the mountains in the background. Can't wait to go back!

Thursday, May 12, 2016

This is another shot of the Radha Madhav Dham temple. I'm not sure if this is the back or the front of the building. Since it has an entrance and a car port, I'm assuming it is the front, but you know what they say about those who "assume"...

Apparently this temple is known for its branch of the Hindu religion called Radha Krishna, started by Radha Madhav Dham. I went inside shortly after I took this shot and spoke with a very nice lady who was the greeter and "concierge" for lack of a better term. She had recently come over from Ireland about a year and a half ago. She told me that the place had been built in 1995 and the property extends over 200 acres. There are families living on the property as well. There are what appeared to be dormitories/apartments as well as single family dwellings there.

As I have been saying, the place was rather interesting. However, it also kind of gave me the creeps. Something about the word "Krishna" I guess... I guess I always think of the cult "Hare Krishna" and the devotees I used to see in New Orleans and in airports.. Creepy for sure! Is that wrong? Maybe it's my ignorance on the Hindu religion or maybe this branch is a bastardized version of it. I don't know, but maybe I shouldn't judge. Anyway, I felt the creeps. Sorry.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

And now for something completely different... I had some time on my hands last weekend so I decided to go to the Radha Madhav Dham temple out near Driftwood, TX. It has some interesting architecture and the grounds are very nice as well. They certainly don't mind people with cameras and tripods out there as there were lots of people there taking pictures, but I was the only one with a tripod. No photos indoors tho. Bummer, there were some interesting things in there as well. Interesting to say the least.

Friday, April 22, 2016

I did take a couple of photos while Eileen and I were exploring and not on my crazy early morning walk. Here, we were looking for a good place for chocolate or something after dinner, I think, and as we were getting ready to go into the Bellagio, I turned around and snapped this shot of Paris Las Vegas across the strip. I think we ended up over there for good chocolate the next day!

Also, to see the raw version before processing, roll your mouse over the image. What a difference post processing raw files makes!

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

My first indoor stop while walking around Vegas at God-awful 4 in the morning was the lobby of the Bellagio. They have this cool glass flower sculpture on the ceiling that is incredible. I thought it worthy of a shot.

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

During my early morning photowalk, I went into City Center to see what that was all about. Remember, it was about 4:30 in the morning and there was hardly anyone around. I setup my tripod and grabbed some shots here and there. This shot you see here was the last one I got before security came by and kicked me out. "No tripods allowed", they said. I said, "OK" and left, cursing them under my breath, of course. I don't get it. I wasn't in anyone's way and not causing a ruckus. Bizarre.

Anyway, this is a shot of the Aria Hotel taken from the turnaround dropoff/pickup area inside City Center. That place is futuristic-looking isn't it?

Monday, April 11, 2016

On our last morning, I got up at about 3:30am and went out to the strip to take some photos. That was a little bit of a mistake. Granted, I was able to get some nice pictures, but there are still a few drunks wandering about and heading home. I met a guy named John near this spot and he had a few adult beverages in him. He was very nice though. He introduced himself, shook my hand and told me this place was paradise! He said that a few times, said he would leave me alone, told me it was paradise one more time and then he left! Pretty funny! Then some other people asked me when the fountains started. I guess since I was out there with a camera, people just think I know what the hell is going on. Another guy came out of the shopping center doors of the Bellagio with some sort of southwestern Asian accent yelling into the phone about some "punk-ass ni**ers." Gotta say, that made me a tad nervous.

Another reason it was a slight mistake getting out that early was by the time I was tired of walking and shooting, the sun was just starting to come up. Had I got up about an hour later, I might have gotten some nice sunrise shots. Oh well. Still happy with this.

This shot is of mainly the Cosmopolitan Hotel and the Eiffel Tower of Paris Las Vegas with a full moon above and the reflections from the pool in front of the Bellagio. Good stuff!

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Gosh, it has been a long time since I posted here! Since our last trip anyway! Well, Eileen and I took another one, albeit a slightly shorter one. We went back to Nevada and did a long weekend in Vegas, baby! Yeah! It was a fun trip. The weird thing is, it wasn't too short. I mean, it's always nice to get away, but it seems there's only so much to do in Vegas, plus we had been there several times now. It's nice to go every few years just to see what's new, but really, the newer it gets, the more it's the same. Just more crazy people and more casinos. Otherwise it's the same.

One thing we wanted to do was take a tour of the Hoover Dam. That had been on our list for a while. So we did!

This shot is an 8-shot handheld portrait-perspective panorama taken from the Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge . I didn't bring my
wide-angle with me, so a pano always works in a pinch without it. If
you roll your mouse over the image, you will see the small versions of
the 8 shots I used for this.

The dam is some 726 feet high. If you can see the white line on the cliffs behind it, that is the water line for Lake Meade - which the dam created out of the Colorado River - when full. The last time the lake was full was 1983. Now it is down something like 135 feet. Hence the water line you see. Hopefully someday it will fill back up again. Hopes are high this year since it is an El Nino weather pattern, but nothing yet. Maybe when the snow melts in the Rockies later this spring, that will help. Apparently it was a similar El Nino back in '83. Fingers crossed!